


According to their Kinds

by Daegaer



Category: Fix Bay'nets - George Manville Fenn
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Animals, Apocalypse, Day After Tomorrow Challenge, End of the World, Implied Animal Harm, M/M, Soldiers, Zoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-05-19
Updated: 2004-05-19
Packaged: 2017-11-05 22:52:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/411906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a bad break-up and during a national disaster Gedge meets Bracy again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	According to their Kinds

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to Louise Lux and Crazysoph for the beta, and to everyone who kindly gave me information!
> 
> (A cultural note: the _News of the World_ is not a sober broadsheet that wins awards for its reporting, the _Financial Times_ is not a trashy Sunday tabloid.)

The train stations were all closed, the last trains long gone. The Underground had been locked down, and regular army patrols had gone down and hunted out the people working on sixty-year-old memories and myths who thought the tunnels could save them in this new end of the world. Bus after bus of refugees had made its way out of the city, military vehicles escorting the convoys. Private vehicles had been either confiscated or lay abandoned, pulled up on the roadsides, part of the government's scheme to keep the roads unblocked. There had been plenty of ugly scenes with families torn from cars after they had refused army personnel's requests to stop; children screaming in the unending rain as their Mummies and Daddies punched soldiers in the face and the soldiers resolutely siphoned off the petrol and ferried the screaming, fighting families to the depots and on to the buses. The good people of London were panicked and scared to death and who could blame them? Not the men, women and officers of the army, who were also panicked and scared to death but who had at least been trained to keep professionally blank faces. Anyone who started showing what they were all feeling got moved off to some other task, some other place, where they wouldn't have to deal with unpredictable unknown civilians, just with friendly army faces in more familiar surroundings. No one wanted someone with an automatic weapon to have a full-scale panic attack.

Gedge had had enough. Almost worse than pulling people out of cars was checking the baggage of the people on the buses. One small bag each, that was what the regulations clearly stated, and no livestock. Bloody John Wilson had taken one look at the grannies with their pussycats, the people lugging along canaries in cages, the dogs of all shapes and sizes and hightailed it off to get himself somehow assigned to some other duty far from the civilians thronging the coachyard of Victoria Station. It felt like half of London was now personally wishing Private William Gedge and the other baggage checkers a lingering and horrible death for separating them from the creatures they loved. _Lucky for us all that's what's on the cards,_ he thought sourly as his gaze fell on a suspiciously wriggling hold-all.

'Fascist! Fascist!' the girl with pink hair screamed at him, and spat in his face again. 'You fucking fascist!' She made another vain attempt to grab her hold-all back as he opened the zip a little and peered inside. Wonderful. Two little kittens looked up at him with big round eyes, surprised at the noise and the rain falling into their bag. There was a fluffy towel for them to sleep on and a few tins of cat food. The silly bitch hadn't brought anything for herself.

'I'm sorry, these can't go with you,' he said woodenly as she started crying, and saying, 'Please, please, they're just babies.'

'Yeah, well the French said no animals. You want human babies to be turned back because of your kittens?' he said. 'Just get on the bus, miss.' 

She stood there, her bright pink hair plastered down wet on her skull, crying and telling him she had nothing else, and this was one of the last buses anyway, they might all be turned back and it wouldn't matter one way or the other. Through the pounding in his head Gedge felt a very strong conviction that he no longer gave a damn as long as she would just shut up and not make any more noise. 'Take them and get on the fucking bus,' he said, holding out the bag. 'And keep them quiet, for God's sake, you'll get us both in trouble.'

'Thank you, thank you,' she sobbed and grabbed the bag in one hand and his helmet strap in the other. For a horrible instant Gedge felt himself begin to lift his rifle, but she just leaned in and kissed him for longer than he felt a couple of bloody kittens warranted. Then she stepped back and, to a chorus of laughter and ribald suggestions from the other soldiers checking baggage, climbed with great dignity onto her bus. As Gedge ruminatively wiped his mouth, still feeling the touch of her tongue, she smiled down at him like they were conspirators, mouthing, _Good Luck_. The others on the bus glared down at him at such evidence of favouritism. Feeling an odd sense that it would be impolite to simply look away, he dredged up a cheerful wink for the girl and turned to the other people in his queue, all of whom appeared blessedly animal-free.

'Next please, ladies and gentlemen.'

* * * 

'Gedge!'

The shout had him snapping his head round, back extra straight and face extra respectful at the sound of an officer's voice.

'Sir!'

He jogged over, tossing the damp cigarette to the ground as he went, and wishing he could have been left in peace with his mates for just a few minutes longer. He stopped smartly in front of Roberts and tried to look like he was ready for extra duty.

'Yes, sir?'

Roberts gave him a long, measuring look from red-rimmed eyes that were sunken and shadowed. _He's a prick, but at least he's not getting any more rest than us,_ Gedge thought.

'Come with me, Private,' Roberts said, and marched off, Gedge trotting at his heels. They walked fast into the maze of little rooms and offices in the bus depot until Roberts opened an unmarked door and strode in. Gedge followed, closing the door. He stood stock still as the man in the room stood up, tall and fair. Gedge felt his tired mind turn to cotton wool as he watched Roberts and Bracy speak quietly. 'You're sure about this?' Roberts said. 'It won't be safe.'

'I'm sure,' Bracy said, holding out his hand.

Gedge watched them shake hands, so polite, so controlled. Then Roberts made a strangled sort of noise and pulled Bracy into an awkward hug. Gedge looked aside, not wanting to see officers getting emotional. He looked back as Roberts took three steps across the small room, gave him a silent and dirty look, and went out the door.

'Gedge,' Bracy said.

'Sir,' Gedge said carefully. Well. This was horribly embarrassing. He kept his gaze focused a little to the left of Bracy's eyes. Looking into them was too much like living in the past. Bracy's hair was as fair as he remembered, and it looked like he'd just had it cut. Officers, Gedge thought. End of everything, and they still thought about regulation haircuts. He felt it was very unfair that Bracy should show up after all this time, snivelling and asking for him for whatever duty he'd suddenly been assigned. Except Bracy wasn't snivelling, but was cold and professional. Gedge felt that was rather unfair too.

Bracy lifted a pack and held it out. 'Ammo,' he said. 'Supplies.' Gedge took it and slung it on, watching as Bracy slung on another pack and took up a rifle. 'Come on, Gedge,' he said, and headed out the door.

They went out the back of the building and down the streets, the water running faster now, and taking up more of the roadways. Gedge didn't bother asking questions, just moved fast and kept a lookout. If there were any nutters around with guns, the end of the world would give them a perfect excuse to open up. Bracy looked around, and ducked down a laneway behind the houses, stopping in front of a red garage door. He bent down and unlocked the bright new padlock and flung the door up. Gedge didn't need to see under the tarp covering the vehicle inside to know it was a jeep. Bracy pulled the tarp off and folded it quickly. Gedge cocked an eyebrow. An army jeep in some civvie garage. Interesting.

'Thank you, Andrew,' Bracy said in a quiet tone. He pulled keys from his pocket and opened the doors. 'In you get, Gedge,' he said, throwing his pack into the back and sliding into the driver's seat.

Gedge stowed his own pack and climbed in. The back of the jeep was packed with boxes and containers of both water and diesel. It made him very nervous.

'Sir?' he said as they drove down the laneway and out onto the empty roads. 'What the hell are we doing?'

'Special mission,' Bracy said and clammed up. After a silence lasting several minutes he said, 'It won't take that long. Two days, max.'

 _With enough rations and enough diesel to get around the whole country?_ Gedge thought in irritation. He was warm and no more than damp, though, and the jeep's heater was working just fine. Maybe a trip around what was left of the country wouldn't be so bad if he could sleep most of the way, he thought, his eyes beginning to drift shut as he looked idly out the window. He jolted fully awake when he realised that Bracy had passed several signs for the M1, going fast as if he had a deadline to meet. He hoped the bastard wasn't really heading north, the papers said it was under ice.

'We leaving London, sir?' he asked sharply. 'Are we going up north? When are we getting back to the regiment?'

'Leave that up to me,' Bracy said. They drove in silence for another few minutes, and then Bracy suddenly muttered something about bad signposting, slammed on the brakes, and spun the wheel round. They shot off down another road, Gedge keeping his eyes peeled and wondering what the hell was going on. 'Short detour,' Bracy said. Gedge said nothing, sliding a glance sidelong at Bracy's tense face and wishing he were back with the others.

They pulled up finally and Bracy hopped out of the jeep, covering it with the tarp. Gedge followed, growing perplexed as they rounded the corner. They were outside the Zoo. Bracy didn't stop, jogging into the park and around the outer fence, peering through it as he went. Finally he stopped and signalled Gedge to come up to him.

'What are we doing here?' he asked, as Bracy poked and rattled at the heavy chain-link fence. There didn't seem to be any animals on the other side.

'Getting in,' Bracy said, 'Come on, I'll boost you up.'

'I think maybe you should tell me what's going on,' Gedge said. 'Sir.'

'Still bad at following orders, I see,' Bracy said, a little smile on his lips.

Gedge sighed, slung his rifle behind him and put a foot in Bracy's linked-together hands. He clambered up to the top and dropped down the other side. Bracy climbed over as well and went for the gate on the side of the enclosure. Gedge noted uneasily that it was locked from the outside, and kept an eye out behind them, suddenly sure he could hear movement. At Bracy's order he climbed over the gate, and kept his rifle pointed into the enclosure until Bracy was safely out.

'What's in there?' he asked, as a bush over by the far wall rustled and shook.

'Wolves,' Bracy said, ignoring Gedge's expression of astonished outrage. 'Don't worry, they were more scared of us than we of them.' He jogged off, Gedge jogging in his wake, mentally cursing all officers and their stupid ideas. He cursed Bracy more when the man vaulted a low fence by the lake and kicked in the door of a shed, extracting from it a long aluminium -- walkway, Gedge decided, after Bracy laid it down from the shore to the first of the monkey islands.

' _What_ are we doing here?' Gedge asked as Bracy stopped in front of the leopard enclosure.

Bracy looked at him with a curious mix of defiance and guilt. 'We're freeing them,' he said. 'Do you want them to starve, or freeze, or drown in here?'

'You've gone mad,' Gedge said in horror, stepping back. 'Absolutely mad. Let's go.'

'You stay where you are, soldier,' Bracy said. 'You don't turn your back on me.'

'Sir,' Gedge said as reasonably as he could. 'We don't have any keys for the locks.'

'Yes, we do,' Bracy said, and drew his pistol.

'Jesus! You're serious,' Gedge said, and reached out to grab Bracy's arm. They both looked at his hand holding tight just above Bracy's wrist. Gedge thought for a moment of sliding his hand down and taking Bracy's hand in his, then glanced into the man's face and thought better of it. He didn't know exactly what the expression was in Bracy's eyes, but there were both anger and sadness there. 'Look,' Gedge said, quietly and calmly as if it made any sort of sense to be talking about freeing dangerous animals when the world was ending, 'no one knows what's going to happen. There isn't going to be any food for them. It'd be kinder just to shoot them before they figure out their keepers have run off on them.'

'No,' Bracy said, shaking his hand off, his expression now quite clear, the same expression all those people had had at the thought of their pets being left behind.

'Eddie, for God's sake --'

'"Lieutenant Bracy" or "sir".'

Gedge drew an angry breath. He imagined he could still feel the touch of his hand on Bracy's arm. 'All right. For God's sake, _sir_ , have some sense. The whole country's going to be covered by an ice sheet, you know that. What good will freeing them do?'

'There are a lot of different opinions on what's going to happen. Even more widespread floods are much more likely, and a lot of them can get out of the area to higher ground.'

'The papers say London's going to be under a couple of hundred foot of ice!' Gedge hissed. 'Let's _go_.'

Bracy suddenly looked amused, saying, 'What paper said that?'

' _News of the World_ ,' Gedge said defiantly. 'I've given up on the _FT_ , it's a bit sensationalist for my liking.'

Bracy was looking at him almost like he had when everything was all right, fondly and with laughter in his eyes. Gedge felt his rebellious heart give a horrible jump, and did his best to remember how badly things had gone at the end. How badly he had made them go.

'It takes a long time for ice that thick to form,' Bracy said. 'It can't happen overnight.'

'The paper said people are freezing solid in Scotland,' Gedge said stubbornly.

'Well, that's the Scottish summer for you,' Bracy said and actually laughed. He put a hand on Gedge's shoulder, still chuckling. 'Will,' he said, 'I know you think I'm an idiot. But I had to come here. I just want to give them a chance, however small. Don't you think everything deserves a chance?'

 _I deserve a chance_ , Gedge thought. _I deserve to get the hell out of here._ He looked at Bracy's face, seeing some of the lines of exhaustion and strain easing as if the man was suddenly all right with having to deal with him. If they stopped arguing about this and just went round opening the cages, Gedge thought, they could be out and away faster and do whatever it was they had actually been sent to do. 'All right,' he said. He thought for a moment about planning the quickest way to do this. 'If you'll take some advice, sir, I think we should let the cats and bears out last. I don't think the other animals would fancy coming out if they reckoned they were going to run into a lion first thing.' Bracy gave him a wide, happy smile as if he'd known Gedge would come round to his way of thinking, and Gedge's heart turned over again.

'Right, let's get started,' Bracy said. 'Zebras and antelopes are this way, through the tunnel.'

* * *

It was harder work than Gedge had thought. They had spent far too much time with the zebras, trying to herd them out the open gate, and the giraffes had been less than cooperative. With the hippos they just shot the locks off and propped the gates open with tempting piles of feed laid outside. Soon they were just opening doors and cages and hoping the animals would eventually come out by themselves. Gedge slammed his rifle butt into the side of a cage in an aviary and watched the bright tropical birds flutter out the open door and perch high up in the building. They weren't going to last the week, he thought sadly. Poor little things.

As they came up to the chimps a shaky voice yelled out, 'What are you up to?'

Gedge turned to see a man wrapped in bulky clothing pointing a rifle at them. 'Take it easy, mate,' he said, 'we're not going to hurt you.'

'What are you doing to _them?_ ' the man yelled.

'We're letting them go,' Bracy said. 'We don't want them to die trapped here.'

The man looked at them, his rifle barrel wavering all over the place. Then he dropped the barrel to point at the ground and started to cry, one hand over his eyes. He wasn't young, Gedge saw, as he walked up carefully, keeping his eyes on the weapon. In his late fifties, maybe. Gedge put a hand over the hand holding the rifle and eased it away from him.

'Take it easy,' he said again. 'It's OK.' It was a stupid thing to say. This man wasn't OK, none of them were. He looked at the weapon and saw it was a tranquilliser gun. 'Are you one of the zoo-keepers?' he asked.

The man nodded, gasping for air and trying to stop crying.

'No school-tours today,' Gedge said gently. 'You shouldn't be here. What's your name?'

'Steve,' the man said, wiping his eyes. 'Steve.'

'Steve, my name's Eddie, and this is Will,' Bracy said. 'Why are you here?'

'I was supposed to meet a few of the others,' Steve said. 'We were going to let them all out, but no one else showed up.' He began to shake again, his voice coming faster. 'I can't get them all out by myself, I opened up the gorilla house and they wouldn't come out because it's raining and they have a baby, even when they saw I had chocolate, the old guy, he loves chocolate, kids used to throw it to him before we put the glass up, but they wouldn't come out, and --'

'Steve!' Gedge said loudly. 'Calm down, mate.' He tried to think of something to forestall the screaming fit the man looked like he was working up to. 'Couldn't you have gone in and chased them out?' he asked.

'Easy to see you know nothing about gorillas,' Steve said, his voice steadying once he was the expert and Gedge was the ignorant squaddie asking stupid questions. 'They're bloody good parents - what d'you think _you'd_ do if someone came into your house and started chasing your missus and kids?'

'Not a good idea, then?' Gedge asked, wondering just how stupid he could seem without the man catching on.

'No,' Steve said scornfully. 'Not a good idea.' And with that he turned away to speak to someone who sounded educated. Gedge gave Bracy a quick smile, and unloaded Steve's gun, listening with half an ear as Bracy laid out a plan of Steve freeing all the monkeys and apes, and letting them deal with the others. Best of all, Steve had a few sets of the master key, and was more than happy to hand them over.

'When you've freed all the animals you can, I want you to open all the zoo gates, all right, Steve?' Bracy said. 'We want them to have plenty of chances to get out. Then I want you to go to a bus depot - any of them, it doesn't matter - and the army'll take care of you, can you do that?'

'All right,' Steve said, and looked weepy again. 'I just didn't want them to die here, that's all.'

'I know,' Bracy said. 'Everything deserves a chance. You go on, now. Fast as you can.'

Gedge watched him trot off in the rain, full of purpose now that someone had told him what to do. He looked back at Bracy and frowned. Sending civilians off by themselves wasn't approved of. They got lost or distracted. And regulations were very clear on calling in any time a patrol found a civilian wandering round. For that matter, it was odd that Bracy hadn't mentioned their ranks or surnames.

'Sir,' he began.

Bracy handed him a key. 'We can do this more quickly if we split up,' he said. 'Free anything that doesn't look like it'll immediately rip your heart out - we'll save those ones up to do together. You head left, Gedge, I'll head right.' He walked off before Gedge could say anything else.

* * *

When they met up again some animals were beginning to shyly emerge and stand in anxious knots by the entrances to their enclosures. With a little encouragement they could be got to head away down the paths. The bushes were full of uneasy noises as  
Bracy led Gedge back to the leopard enclosure. There was no sign of anything within, and Gedge nervously kept his rifle trained on the gate as Bracy unlocked it and swung it wide open.

'Here, kitty, kitty,' Bracy said, in high good humour.

'Very funny,' Gedge muttered, stepping back slowly, rifle still at the ready. They went up the path carefully, keeping an eye out behind them, but there was no sign of the leopards emerging.

The lions were visible, staying at the back of their enclosure in shelter. As Bracy opened the gate a lioness lifted her head and stared unblinking in their direction. Gedge wondered how many lions there were, finding it difficult to tell fur from wood or ground. _You stay where you are_ , he thought as the lioness lazily stood up to see them better. _You just stay where you are._ Bracy tapped him on the shoulder and he stepped backwards, not taking his eyes off the still staring lioness.

At the tigers' enclosure, Bracy pointed out the tangle of orange-and-black huddled under the trees. 'They like water, you know,' he said. 'They swim for pleasure.'

'Well, they're getting plenty of water now,' Gedge said as Bracy swung the gate open. The tigers didn't even look up.

The gateway was empty, and Gedge was stepping back, and then there was a tiger there, right in the gateway and Bracy was between him and it and the idiot wasn't moving, was just staring stupidly at the tiger as it swung its head to look straight at him. 'Move,' Gedge hissed. 'Move back, I'll get it.'

'You can't shoot it,' Bracy said in a bare whisper, 'please, Will, don't.'

It was enormous. It turned its head from Bracy and looked at Gedge with pale yellow eyes, never blinking once. It took a single step forward. Even the size of its paws made him quail. He could not look away from its eyes, had his rifle aimed right between its eyes, and knew it did not care. He'd always heard that animals didn't have facial expressions, but there was an expression on the tiger's face, he just didn't know what it was. _If you so much as touch him, there's a bullet in your brain,_ he thought. The tiger gazed into his eyes for another endless second, then it dropped its head and strolled forward, its shoulders moving lazily as it padded past them, ignoring their presence and going down the path. Bracy exhaled loudly and grabbed the side of the gate for support as Gedge watched the tiger vanish round the bend.

'Come on, come on before there's any more,' Gedge said, and pulled Bracy away, trying to look in all directions at once as they jogged up the path, away from the direction the tiger had taken. The wolves and bears seemed like nothing after that.

'Let's get back to the jeep,' Gedge said, looking around him, hearing animals moving even though he could rarely see them. 'We should get on and do whatever we were meant to do before you started playing Dr Doolittle.'

Bracy nodded, but didn't move. 'Will,' he said, his voice still unsteady, and stopped. He looked sharply to one side as something pushed through the bushes. Nothing emerged, and they walked backwards away from the spot, weapons ready. 'Will,' Bracy said again. 'I've been lying to you.'

'Well, you're an officer, sir,' Gedge said, thinking a bit of cheek could hardly be noted at the present time.

'No. I'm not,' Bracy said. 'I'm not in the army any more.'

Gedge looked at him, unsure, taking in the uniform and weapons, all regulation. And the freshly-cut hair. No other officer had spared the time to keep their hair that neat and short. 'Ha bloody ha, sir,' he said, to be on the safe side.

'I didn't want to come back and have to see you,' Bracy said in a flat tone. 'So I bought my time out. I haven't been a soldier for months.'

Gedge looked at him in shock. He wasn't joking. 'Christ,' he said. 'You hated me that much?'

'I never hated you,' Bracy said in the same flat tone.

'Sir -- Eddie. What the hell's going on?' Gedge said.

'I'm setting you free,' Bracy said. 'I don't want you to die here.'

'Jesus,' Gedge said, a thought burning through his mind. 'Jesus. You've got me to desert. You fucking bastard. You and fucking Roberts, don't tell me he's not in on your plan.'

'Of course he is, how else did I get the weapons and the jeep?' Bracy said. 'He's my friend. I told him everything and after he finished calling me a disgrace and a fudgepacker he asked me what I needed.' He reached out and grabbed Gedge's arm hard. 'You have to listen, you have to come with me. You're not going to get out in time, Will, no one still stationed in Britain is. France and Spain are closing their borders to us, the North African countries won't keep theirs open much longer. I won't lie to you again, I promise, but we can't hang around here any longer. I just couldn't stand the thought of all the animals dying here, or we'd be long gone.'

'You're serious,' Gedge said. 'Fuck. I have to get back, I have friends, I can't leave them.'

' _I_ have friends too,' Bracy said, 'and one of them has taken risks to give you the chance to get out.' He pulled Gedge close to him, his face strained and miserable. 'I never hated you. You know that, Will. Please. Don't argue, just come with me. I'm not asking you to -- I know you don't want --' He took a deep breath. 'I just want you to live.'

'I'm sorry,' Gedge said and watched Bracy droop with misery. He looked as he had when Gedge had spoiled everything, he looked like Gedge had felt for long months afterwards, like he still felt, if he ever allowed himself to think about it. He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking of how he would have given anything for a chance to make things all right between them. _I should be careful what I ask for_ , he thought and opened his eyes to see that Bracy still had the desperate, wounded expression on his face. Gedge took a breath and said what he'd long thought of saying. 'I'm sorry for everything I said, I'm sorry for everything I did, I was a coward and a liar. None of it was true.' He seized Bracy's hand and squeezed it hard. 'I wish you'd come back, I waited and waited. I'm sorry for everything.'

'Well, if that's not a sign of the Apocalypse I don't know what is,' Bracy said and tried to smile. 'You'll come?' Gedge nodded, not trusting himself to speak further, and Bracy sighed in relief. 'Let's go,' he said, still holding tight to Gedge's hand, 'let's go.'

* * *

See! The streets and park grey in the waning light, hard surfaces running with water. All colour is washed out and the leaves on the trees hang limp in the wet, unseasonable cold. _There,_ down the middle of the road, bright against the asphalt and the green of what will be the last English spring a tiger pads his way, shaking the water from his fur and looking about him with wild, yellow eyes. In the distance a little herd of gazelles shift nervously and flee in search of their familiar zebra paddock-mates. Overhead six macaws fly, swift vibrant flashes of scarlet and blue in the gloom of evening. From somewhere close by, low and rough, comes the cough of a searching lion. An answer comes quickly and then another and another as the lost family member is welcomed back with relief. The trees of Regent's Park are filled with panicked chattering as small monkeys flee upwards to safety, crying, 'Leopard! Leopard!' The leopard stalks beneath, unheeding through the rain, her mind full of sere brown plains and sunlight, her paws treading silver through the wet grass. From all the wide-flung gates they come and the city rings with wild, free calls and the tread of hooves, of paws, of soft padded feet.

Out into the streets, through the main gates, slip two young men in combat uniform, hand in hand. They turn the corner. They are gone. All the sounds die away. The streets of London are empty once again.

Overhead the clouds thicken and the light fades further. The rain pours on and on.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

 

 

_Genesis 6:20_

Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the earth according to its kind, two of every sort shall come in to you, to keep them alive.


End file.
